Why has no one heard of FREETUBE!?!?!?
FreeTube is fantastic. I only discovered the concept of YouTube front ends relatively recently and I am not a normie, so the likelihood of normies knowing about front ends is practically zero. Most people think that the only ways to access YouTube content are to go to the website or use the app.
“Premium lite”? What is this doublespeak?
YouTube became shittier, what’s new.
All the people saying “I’ll just stop using it, no big loss,” are you only using YouTube for fun? Have you never needed to pass a class, prep for a job, work on a house, learn a skill using it?
It is such a large repository of human knowledge that is so far not widely replicated anywhere else. I rely on it for learning skills to provide for my family, as far as learning other useful abilities.
For example, YouTube taught me how to service my own vehicles. I have a specific set of old 90s Volvo cars, and there is a youtuber (Robert DIY) who does an excellent job documenting how to do maintenance on them. I have done my best to archive everything he posts, but he is just an example, as there are countless other informative tutorials and how-tos posted on YouTube.
As of now, Google has their grips on an enormous amount of practically useful data, and they know it. It’s beyond fucked, and to act like it is inconsequential or ignorable is very short sighted.
It reminds me of Reddit (human solutions/ideas for random problems and interests), except the costs of storing and serving video are probably really high with a large userbase. (I wonder exactly how high, though. I’m sure it’s hard to put a single unit price per GB/hour or whatnot, but still . . .) It’s unfortunate that so many people have put so much work into sharing their knowledge but have basically experienced vendor lock-in.
Just recently I found old reddit and forum threads and a few YouTube videos that helped me and a buddy fix her car. The solution(s) was provided by just enthusiasts and random people helping others in their spare time by documenting stuff. Although there’s also a lot of unhelpful threads and videos out there too, lol.
You are absolutely right!
Knowledge is power - Google has tons of it. Not only on YouTube, but also the data they collect about every user, every click and interaction, etc.
I think the Tech-Giants have way too much power and even have some sort of monopoly. Like you said: No one has or even can recreate something like YouTube. Same with (for example) Microsoft. Even though FreeBSD, Linux Distros, OpenBSD, … gain popularity, they are nowhere near Microsoft’s Windows (or any other Product). And if you look at schools, businesses or governments, they (for some ungodly reason) use and pay for Microsoft products. Children get hooked on their Products in school!
Something has to change, I honestly don’t know what exactly, but these monopolies destroy our freedom! Maybe it would be better, if our countries had politicians, that do their work, not care about some “make America great again” shit.
What pisses me off most is that the way the internet works now is that ten years ago, someone who wanted to share about how to service your 90s Volvo that would have written it on a web page with a few photos that would have been quicker, cheaper and easier to write, quicker and easier to read, and cost next to nothing to host.
But because Google control fucking everything, that same person is now heavily incentivized to make it a pointlessly long video instead, that took days to make and edit, and is harder to use while working, and if they don’t do that then they ain’t getting anywhere near the top of the search results and you weren’t going to find it anyway.
It sucks and I can’t wait for people to wake up and tell Google to fuck off and stop ruining the internet.
Youtube has ads? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Wait. I pay for YouTube with my time, the most important resource I have access to. There’s a level where you pay money and STILL SEE ADS?
I pay money to ride on the bus and still see ads there.
And you should not. But perhaps you would not want the fares to rise?
I hope more and more people learn that spotify can also be used to host videos.
Wut? 4 real?
They have clips from songs, so yes, I guess. I’m not sure if anyone can host a video there though.
Youtube ads? I have no clue what you’re talking about…
No time like the present to begin creating a European alternative, given the geopolitics of the times.
Please support peertube, it’s kind of like the Lemmy of streaming videos in that it’s a federated collection of providers.
A list of instances: https://joinpeertube.org/instances
e.g. peertube.tv
UBlockOrigim
Why bother to pay if you’re just going to get ads anyway
<gangster> It would be a shame if you were not to pay and had more ads than content. </gangster>
We have network television at home.
I’m never going to pay to see ads in my life. Nope.
Sadly I do so every week when going to the cinema
Yeah, horrible innit? When I used to go to the cinema as a kid in the 70s and 80s, you’d get maybe ten minutes of trailers before your film. And I never minded that, I don’t dislike watching trailers. These days, totally different. Last time I went to the cinema there was maybe half an hour of ads. Some trailers, but mostly just advertisements for crap.
It is so fuckin disrespectful to their customers. If I wanted to see all that bullshit, I could have stayed home and watched it on TV. Except I don’t watch TV because the experience is so poor - largely because of ads.
I understand that cinemas have been struggling ever since covid, even before, and I understand that advertising revenue pays the bills. But cinema isn’t cheap, for me it’s an occasional treat when there’s something I really wanna see on the big screen. I do not want to spend that much money and get treated like a fuckin farm animal being fed crap. Wankers.
I can’t be alone in feeling this way, who wants to pay to see ads? Who thinks that sounds like a great evening out? It ruins the experience, and it’s insulting, by the time the movie starts I’m angry. I’d rather pay a bit more and just have a couple of trailers.
I recently went to a small autonomous cinema with a mate and saw Mulholland Drive. Great experience, comfy seats, could bring in drinks from the bar, no fuckin ads. But for new films there aren’t many options. So I don’t often go to the cinema.
Sorry for this long and bitter diatribe! You just hit on something that really pisses me off too.
I’ve started to go 15-20 minutes late. I’ve never missed a minute of movie, but I’ve skipped so many ads.
Go 20 minutes late my dude
That’ll be the one movie they decide to show no prescreening ads lol
That happened to me once. I think it was I Heart Huckabees. It started and people were so confused. I half think David O Russel asked them to do it to throw people off.
I haven’t gone to a movie in like… 10 years probably. Ha…
I keep noticing people in this thread recommending UBlock Origin, with others replying that they eventually got a popup to turn off their adblocker.
This is usually followed by replies mentioning they just click X (or add a UBlock filter on the popup), and go on with watching Youtube. No problem, right?
According to Ublock Origin’s Redd*t Post, that is just the first warning stage; eventually the presentation of their anti-adblock message becomes more intrusive until you receive the “The in-player message. Playback is stopped.”
I should know. I get that message on any Youtube video (while logged in), and it doesn’t go away for several hours.
That said, my workaround (extremely hacky) was to find the RSS feeds for all of my channel subscriptions, and then add them to FreshRSS. That section of my RSS feed essentially acts like a Youtube subscription page, but not tied to an actual account.
On my computer: I watch them in a private browser Firefox profile I’ve dedicated solely to Youtube (and has all of the extensions already installed, of course).
On Android: I watch them using NewPipe.
Even quicker fix: logout.
Admittedly i’m not a huge youtube watcher, but since logging out there’s not a single damned nag when i run a marathon
i dont log in, for the purposes of google gathering more data about you. and also i would get in the habit of commenting on videos, which i dont do anymore.
Same. I use it in a dedicated Firefox container, so if I ever get a nag, I’ll clear the cores all cookies in that container and I assume that’ll reset whatever that is.
Ublock orgins on Firefox has worked for me so far on both pc and mobile. No warnings.
I do also have umatrix on pc, but I can’t really recommend it for everyone since it requires some setup on every web page which most people would find too annoying.
Previously I had the warnings until uBlock killed them. Only one has made it through in recent times, we’ll see how things keep going.
Why are you censoring the word reddit? Is that a joke?
Ubo and ff mobile: I got the warning for the first time yesterday. Closed ff completely and it went back to normal. I also run pihole too, so maybe a mix of them together has kept my account ‘safe’ still. And I’m still yt freemium. FF mobile with desktop site enabled allows for audio play back with screen off btw.
if this happens to me I just won’t watch youtube anymore. It’s mostly garbage content anyway.
Well, I’m still happy that my grandfathered $7.99 plan from the GPM days still holds up, fully ad-free.
Watch your card on file. I had the whole enchalada once and loved using the music app and no ads. Card expired for one payment, sub cancelled, and I fixed it immediately. They wouldn’t give it back to me, and refused to refund the larger payment for just Youtube.
Edit: Guys. I think a lot of you missed where I said EASIEST METHODS.
Easiest methods to ditch Youtube ads:
- PC: Firefox + uBlock Origin
- Mac, option 1: Safari + AdGuard
- Mac, option 2: Firefox + uBlock Origin
- Android, option 1: Youtube ReVanced (FYI: ALL Play Store listings for this are fake; the official site is revanced.app and is the only place to get it)
- Android, option 2: Firefox Mobile + uBlock Origin
- iPhone/iPad: Safari + AdGuard
For those who may have heard about Pi-hole and are wondering why it’s not on this list: PI-HOLE DOES NOT BLOCK YOUTUBE ADS. IT NEVER HAS AND NEVER WILL.
No Grayjay? Been using that almost exclusively since they released the desktop version. Had to log out and back in with my (new, basically blank) YT account a few times after updates, and there are very rare cases of certain videos not wanting to load, but overall it’s been working well so far.
Android, option 3 (Better): newpipe from fdroid. 0% algorithmic feed, exclusively show who you’re following, in chronological order
How does Newpipe work? It feels too good to be free.
How does Newpipe work?
Yeah, this will work for a while but I think the days have gotta be numbered.
Best long term solution? Leave YouTube.
I guess in the meantime: if on PC grab the freetube flatpak. Really decent client, anonymous and create subscriptions without actually subscribing.
Youtube ReVanced
Revanced still Relies on G services
Also, Theres this very unknown app Called Freetube for all plattforms or newpipe for Android
I tried Freetube for a while, but it just never works. An actual coin flip each day whether or not anything would load at all. I got so tired of it I just went back to Youtube, as I’ve only ever seen one single ad in my entire time using uBlock Origin on Librewolf.
I use it consistently with few issues. Once in a while, usually on Thursdays (when it seems YT rolls out changes), something breaks, but the devs are quick to fix it. The last issue I experienced was when YT transitioned to SABR, and it was out for a day or two before they had things working again. I am at least perfectly capable of going without for a day once every two months.
It’s also one of the projects I’ve used to learn more about how fixes are worked on in FOSS. I will typically run nightly builds also - I find it pretty cool to follow an issue and once they push a fix I can instantly grab that fresh build without waiting for it to be packaged.
If you want to give it a try again, get mpv and yt-dlp installed in your system then activate from Freetube settings the external player button, which you’ll be able to click from search or from a vid page
Google is constantly making changes that break it, the developers fix them quickly… but if your distro doesn’t keep the newest version in their repo then you’d have to install it from their git repo.
Generally they have a patch for any breaking changes within the day.
Revanced uses microG, which is optional. I also mentioned that these were the easiest methods. But, you’re absolutely right in that there are plenty of other methods to choose from.
Mac also has the excellent Orion Browser where you can install uBlock origin
Can I block youtube ads with a transparent proxy like squid ? What about a self-hosted youtube auto-downloading queue list ? I’m fine with .mp4 files !
Can I block youtube ads with a transparent proxy like squid ?
I haven’t tried that, so I’m not entirely sure. I just focused on the easy methods that most people will gravitate towards.
Try it and let us know what you find!
What about a self-hosted youtube auto-downloading queue list ? I’m fine with .mp4 files !
Sounds like
yt-dlp. Lots of people use that to get around ads, and also for data hoarding.deleted by creator
I think it is extremely hard because they are served from the same servers (technically, ads are YouTube videos)
And if the logic on the client isn’t removed, it will hang waiting for the ad
I’m curious for something more sophisticated that dns blocks. Something that modifies the content on the fly like, ublock, dark reader and sponsorblock.
You can also use the Orion browser with Ublock Origin on iPhone.
I use IgeBlock on Android. It has the banner ads, but not the video ads, so it’s pretty good if you don’t wanna deal with Revanced
uBlock on mobile Firefox gets rid of all the ads though.
That, and Revanced isn’t difficult to set up, you don’t even need root:
- Disable stock youtube app
- Download Revanced manager
- Grab the recommended .apk version of YouTube from APKMirror
- Patch it with Revanced manager
- Install it
And you’re done. Update once every 6-12 months or so.
